Airline Passenger Group Pushed For Ban On Ammo In Checked Luggage

When we talk about anti-gunners, we’re usually thinking of groups like Giffords, Everytown for Gun Safety, Moms Demand Action, or someone similar. However, anti-gunners also infest plenty of other groups and can push those groups to take anti-gun positions even if there’s no logical reason to do so.

An airline passenger organization used the anniversary of 9/11 to push for new regulations that would ban ammunition in checked luggage.

FlyersRights.org, which claims to be the largest US airline passenger organization with 40,000 members called on Trump to close the “ammunition loophole.” The group claims that ammunition in checked bags could lead to more 9/11 style attacks in the future.

During flights, checked bags are not accessible to passengers on planes. The 9/11 terrorists used box cutters to take over the airplanes. The Al-Qaeda members used the aircraft to attack the World Trade Center Twin Towers, and the Pentagon. Passengers resisted the hijacking of a third plane that crashed in a field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania.

“We are alarmed that the Trump Administration is hiding and failing to correct past inadequacies and compounding them by pursuing newly misguided policies,” said Paul Hudson, President of FlyersRights.org. “Ignoring and hiding a rulemaking petition filed by FlyersRights.org in 2017 to fix the ammunition loophole that allows and even encourages carrying of guns and ammunition with no added security in checked baggage.”

The advocacy group pointed to the shooting in January 2017 at the Fort Lauderdale airport in the baggage claim area of Terminal 2. Esteban Santiago-Ruiz, an ISIS influenced combat veteran, suffering from schizophrenia shot and killed five people and wounded six others. Santiago-Ruiz used a Walther PPS 9mm semi-automatic pistol.

FlyersRights.org falsely claims that Santiago-Ruiz used an automatic firearm in the attack and further took issue with the fact that the TSA didn’t ban firearms and ammunition together in bags the days after the rampage. They even claimed that the TSA was encouraging people to bring guns in their checked bags.

The group further calls on the Trump administration and the TSA to implement additional security measures for people flying with guns. At the same time, FlyersRights.org wants to end pat downs by TSA agents on transgendered flyers because such pat downs are instilling fear in these passengers.

In other words, it’s not really about safety. It’s about forcing the right politics down people’s throats.

Look, what happened in Fort Lauderdale in 2017 was awful. There’s no denying it. However, people have been flying with weapons and ammunition in checked baggage for decades, and if that’s the only incident they can point to, then it’s not a threat. It’s statistical noise.

Yes, it’s more than that to the families of those slain and to the injured, but we don’t make policy based on isolated incidents. While it’s certainly possible to do so, what eventually happens is that everything is illegal or heavily restricted.

After all, it was less than a year ago when a terrorist rented a truck and tried to mow down as many cyclists as he could. By this same logic, renting trucks from Home Depot should become illegal as well. It only happened once, but that’s enough, right?

No, it’s not about safety at all. What it is about is pandering to the fear the media and anti-gun activists have created around the idea of an armed citizenry. They want us all disarmed as much as possible and who cares if it costs lives.

They don’t care what kind of hardship it places on competitive shooters who use hand loaded ammunition or anyone else. All that matters is that they make life difficult for those of us who take our personal protection seriously.

If it were really about safety, they wouldn’t be singling guns out while trying to end pat downs on transgender passengers.